Digital Media SL Final Project

Artist Statement:

This project was fun. Having the face look nice was a challenge though and the second life marketplace is so massive it's hard to find what you want. I had a lot of fun building my Desktop and found the mechanics of SL to be much easier than sketchup. I wanted to go with a digital theme since this is digital media so that's what my second skin is based off of. 

Project #7 3D (Virtual Space)

Artist Statement:

This is such an awful program. Overall, I would have to say that Minecraft would probably have been a better program to use for this particular project. I can see it being useful for other projects that have more round shapes, but not for this one.

I picked a Pokeball because it explains a lot of things about me. First, it explains my love for Pokemon, obviously, Japanese culture, and Video Games. It also represents crafting because I made my pokeball sculpture out of perler beads. Perler beads are crafting beads that are meant for younger kids to use. I used crafting as a way to make income and to pay for college. 

Bonus Picture:

Manipulated View: Images of the West

Manipulated View: Images of the West

                On February 27th, I attended the reception for an exhibit in Sheppard Contemporary at the University of Nevada, Reno. The exhibit was titled Manipulated View: Images of the West and featured a variety of artists and works by them that represented the landscapes and scenery of the American West. Artist who had work on display included Kendra Larson, Emily Nachison, Rosemary Bodolay, Alex J. Pena, and Julia Schwardron. 

                Like most receptions at the university, the attendees were friendly, the atmosphere was positive, and the food was great. While all the pieces on display were stunning, a few really stood out to me. The first of these was "Portal" by Emily Nachison. The work featured a circular disk that was place on the ground with various mushroom sculptures featured around the edge of the disk. Despite growing up in the American West, I haven't seen much outside of the southern desert of Nevada. Mushrooms aren't something that I know a lot about and I've only had a few encounters with ones growing naturally. I'm also a big fan of sculpture and three dimensional pieces. These reasons are probably why I really loved to look at this piece. I'm assuming the varying of the mushrooms around the disk represent the life cycle of mushrooms, although I'm not entirely. Aside from what the mushrooms represent, I believe this piece to be compositionally beautiful. I the size, shadows, and negative space in the center are really striking. I don't believe this piece would have been as powerful if the center had been filled with something.

"Portal" by Emily Nachison

                A second piece that I really enjoyed was "Mt St Helens" by Kendra Larson. When entering the exhibit space, "Mt St Helens" is the first thing most people were drawn to, I noticed. It's quite large and also quite beautiful. During the reception, I was one of the first people to arrive. My boyfriend and I went over to the painting immediately to observe. While doing so, another attendee came over to us and started talking about her personal experiences with Mt. St. Helens. She even described how she had viewed the volcano from the perspective of the painting. I found this experience to be the most memorable of the reception because it showed how art can connect people. I have never been to Washington, but I plan on visiting in the future. Not only did this painting connect me to the landscape of the state, but also to the people who have once resided there.

"Mt. St. Helens" by Kendra Larson

                Overall, the reception was a wonderful experience that I wish I could experience again. The art was beautiful with a variety of different piece from different media, including sculpture, video, painting, and more. The experiences I had at the reception have only helped me develop and even great love and understanding for art and the ways it works. 

Artist Lecture: Steve Lambert

            On February 20, I attended a lecture at the University of Nevada, Reno with my boyfriend. The lecturer was Steve Lambert. Before this lecture, I had never heard of Steve Lambert aside from announcements stating that he would be visiting our university.         

Steve Lambert's "Capitalism Works For Me! True/False"

      
             Lambert opened his lecture by telling everyone to close their eyes. He then told us to visualize what it would be like to be a superhero. The only power we were give, though, was the power to put 3 thoughts into a person's head. It was only the power to put thoughts into someone's head and not make them take action due to these thoughts. Whether they acted upon these thoughts we had placed was up to them.  This activity definitely sparked the curiosity of the audience, but Lambert said we would come back to it later.

            After the introduction activity, Lambert went on to discuss some of his work he had done in the past. He mainly focused on two of his projects: The 2008 U.S. Election with the New York Times "Special Edition" and "Capitalism Works for Me!". Despite these two project being some of his largest and most popular works, some of the smaller projects he had done in the past caught my interest. For example, I enjoyed the fact that Steve created useful extensions and programs that people can use in their everyday lives as a form of art. The two that spoke to me the most were "Self-Control" and "Add-Art". Self-Control is a program for that will clock access to incoming and/or outgoing mail servers for a period of time. Once the timer is set, there is no way to stop these sites from being blocked. "Add-art" is a Firefox plug-in that replaces advertisements with various pictures of art. I already use AdBlock and it's a great program, but I feel like replacing ads with art would make for a more fun overall experience as opposed to a to of white space.  

            Overall, Steve Lambert's lecture was fun, entertaining, and insight.  When I asked my boyfriend what he remembered about Steve Lambert, he replied with, "Is he the guy with the beard and the signs?" and "Uh, he was a pretty laid back guy who had an interesting outlook on how art can affect people in modern day settings." That's high praise coming from a biology major! At the end of Lambert's lecture, he revealed that the superpower we were given at the beginning, is actually what art does every day. We have the power to make art that inspires and provokes thought among the general public. We can't control the actions of the people who are affected by our art, but hopefully it will give them new perspective on life and inspire change in society. 

Reading #6 - Manovich

Questions:
1.  How do classfications such as new media, digital media, and traditional media affect our view on art as artists?

2. How is the classification of a type of media affected by the way the media stores information?

Final Writing Assignment - "Our Greatest Resource"

            For my final writing assignment in Digital Media 245, I picked artists Justin Kemp and Joe Mckay. Both use a variety of digital mediums that include photography, digital screenshots, video, and digital collages. Other more traditional mediums include sculpture, performance art, installation, games, and assemblage. Although traditional mediums are used by both these artists, they almost always have technology and internet based themes.

            My first artist, Justin Kemp, was born in 1982 making him to be about 32 or 33 years old. He currently resides in Northampton, Massachusetts and works as an artist assistant "for a guy named Tom." Outside from working "for Tom", Kemp makes his own art. He claim to be known to most as 'the chillest bro in the valley'. His works include a number of different media such as

            Most of his works have general themes revolving around the concept of the internet. He even claims to keep his desk extremely tidy so that there is more room for the internet, "where everything is within reach". When asked what is one piece of gear that he could not live without in an interview, Kemp replied simply, "The Internet".

            Unfortunately, in regards to technological preferences, Kemp prefers Macs over PCs. He also says his that Chrome and iTunes help him get the job done and in the future he wishes to learn how to use basic programs such as Photoshop, After Effects, Flash, Word, etc. I'm not entirely sure how much of that is sarcasm.

            My second artist, Joe Mckay, is a professor at Purchase College in Purchase, New York. He teaches a variety of subjects including intro to physical computer, hacking the everyday, digital media studio, webdocs, and senior seminar. His work has been featured in numerous shows such as The New Museums, Postmasters Gallery, ICA, San Jose, Berkeley Art Museum, and many more. His works, like Kemp, feature a variety of different media. These include photo, websites, performance, sculpture, video, games, and installations.

            The two works that I want to feature from these artists are, "Adding to the Internet" from Justin Kemp and "How to Avoid Gmail's Sponsored Links" from Joe McKay. In "Adding to the Internet", Kemp uses the search engine Google to search for very specific scenarios. For example, one of the phrases Kemp searches for is "2010 swimsuit edition tucked inside the art of happiness". After searches for these phrases and finding no results, Kemp proceeds to stage these scenarios or objects and take a photo with them. So with the search exampled above, Kemp provides both the proof that the phrase, "2010 swimsuit edition tucked inside the art of happiness" yielded no results with a screenshot, but also of a photograph of an issue of 2010 swimsuit edition tucked into a hard cover version of The Art of Happiness on top of a wooden table.

            For Joe Mckay's work, "How to Avoid Gmail's Sponsored Links", he provides many screenshots of his project. The first of the screenshots is simply a "before" picture of how his email usually looks and it features an email that isn't anything other than what one would say normal. He then takes another screenshot and titles it as "After". What's different in this screenshot is that McKay has added words such suicide, death, 9/11 and murder to the end of his email. He also shows that the ads to the right of the email that appeared in the "before" picture are no longer there. He then further delves into his experiment. "If the message runs long Google turns the ads back on, however, if you add another 'sensitive' word they go off again. After extensive testing I've discovered you need 1 catastrophic event or tragedy for every 167 words in the rest of the email. I usually toss in a couple extra for good measure." (McKay)

            These two works are both similar and different in many ways. I will first discuss the similarities and then move on to discuss the differences. First of all, both of these pieces of work are of the same medium. Both pieces include or entirely consist of screenshots taken directly from the internet. They are also presented on the internet rather than in galleries, exhibits, or in the general public. Their subject matter is also similar in the sense that they both have to do something with the internet.

            While both of these physically look similar they have many, many difference. Some of these differences touch upon approach, where other differences are a lot more deep. For example, both of these pieces from different artists use the same medium, but one artist, Kemp, decides to take it further by including another form of media into his overall presentation. Not only does Kemp provide screenshots, but he also provides photographs of different sculptures or staged scenarios to compliment his work. Without these photographs, the work would have completely different meaning and might not be as powerful as the work is now. This difference is completely physical in the sense that Kemp has provided something extra in order to deliver the point of his piece across where McKay doesn't need to go the extra mile. On the other hand, McKay's work has a deeper meaning and concept than Kemp's. Kemp's plays out to be more than a gag rather than something that's supposed to make a statement. McKay's talks about his work on the page it's feature on saying, "Here's the question: are these ads really removed to protect the readers, or are they removed to protect the advertisers from having their products associated with these words?"(Mckay) This means that McKay's manipulation of Google is actually a critique on advertisements and how they relate to the general consumer. When coming across this piece, one might think it's just another hack that's going around the internet, when really it's about addresses serious issues such as capitalism, how business treat their costumers, and how consumers view the business that aid them in obtaining basic essentials need to live. Not only does this provoke thought and discussion but it may spark a lifestyle change in an individual who views this particular piece. Apparently, many viewers questioned whether this was to be considered art or not when coming upon the piece. One viewer's comment was noticed by McKay who decided to include it on the page for this project. The comment read, " It's not only about 'getting rid of ads' This is about the purest form of 'hacking'. Exploiting the workings of a system in ways it's creators never intended it to work. It's not about efficiency or need, it's about style."(Mckay) Mckay expressed, "With all the blog traffic and all the comments there's finally been one person that gets it."(Mckay) This means that McKay had agreed with this point of view as the artist. Hence, that the work not only brings about serious topics of discussion like those mentioned about, but also has a double meaning. A double meaning that also has some very serious and thought provoking context behind it. So, not only does McKay's work have a deep concept, but it has a second underlying meaning to boot. This is a very crucial difference between the pranks and "one-liners" of Kemp's work versus the harsh statements and criticisms of Mckay's.

            Another difference between the two is that Mckay's piece is relating to the internet but Kemp's piece is about the internet. In Mckay's " How to Avoid Gmail's Sponsored Links", he addresses a specific portion of the internet and how it's altered when you input something else into another portion of the internet. With Kemps, "Adding to the Internet" it's about the internet as a whole and how it's lacking certain things. What we know about Kemp is that he loves the internet, so it would only be natural for him to want it to be a more complete place by uploading pictures of things that don't already exist on this said place. It makes for a good joke overall because it's ridiculous that Kemp would want to complete this part of the internet considering the absurdly specific things he searches for and then provides images of.

            Overall, the similarities and difference between these two artists show exactly how digital media can be the same but different. Each artists uses extremely similar forms of media, yet provide two entirely different tones to their work along with a good argument on how the internet is our greatest tool as digital media artists. Despite this, both artists and their pieces are entertaining to look at and provide numerous topics of discussion.

Works Cited

Kemp, Justin . "." Justin Kemp - hey whats up. Justin Kemp, n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.             <http://justinkemp.com/Justin-Kemp>.

McKay, Joe. "." Joe McKay. Joe McKay, n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2014. <http://joemckaystudio.com/>.

"Justin Kemp." Setups and Spaces. N.p., 10 June 2010. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.             <http://setupsandspaces.com/post/676849095/justin-kemp>.

"Joe McKay." Purchase College. Purchase College, n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.             <http://www.purchase.edu/departments/academicprograms/faculty/joe%20mckay/joemck  ay.aspx>.

McKay, Joe. "How to avoid Gmail's Sponsored Links." How to avoid Gmail's Sponsored Links.    Joe Mckay, n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2014. <http://joemckaystudio.com/gmail.html>.

Reading #5

What defines digital media as strictly digital media?

Is art thay uses old tools such as VHS tapes, old cameras, etc considered digital media?

Project #6

Original Website Screenshot:

Edited Screenshot:

Artist Statement: 

I decided to do Mac/Apple because a lot of discussion in class has been about PC Vs. Mac. I thought it would make a statement knowing that this project would be display through a Mac. This critiques how brands and their popularity affect how we work as artists. Apple being a more popular brand in regards to technology, forces artist who may prefer to use something else to learn how to work these very different products. It's a challenge and a lot of us are set in our ways, but being in a field that is based around technology forces us to overcome this obstacle. Adapting is essential. 

Reading #4: Rita Raley "Tactical Media" Questions

1. 
   

Project #5 Video Cover

For my Video Cover, I did Cory Archangels "Mario Movie" as my inspiration. When creating this video, I thought a lot about how mario was effected as his environment deteriorated. It made me think of all the times when I was growing up where I thought a particular place or person was going to be a constant. I later found out that nothing is constant. For example, I started feeling this way after my first relationship ended. I thought that was going to be a constant and then one day it was ripped away from me. I thought a lot about it and realized people were never going to be a constant. They were always changing and adapting so it was ridiculous of me to think that their presense was so stable in my life. I accepted this but it still hit hard when my parents got divorced and my step-brother moved out. I never realized that he would be gone. That we would no longer be siblings after having been raised together. I realized that even the people closest to you don't have a permanent spot in your life.

I also discovered that this was the same for certain places and events. During my senior year of high school, there was a popular coffee shop that our group of friends often visited together. Over winter break, my boyfriend and I decided to visit. We realized that despite the place still being there, it wasn't the same. It was never going to be the same as it was during our senior year despite the location not having changed. It was the people and the memories that made it what it was. It was a safe haven that was suddenly gone just because the crowd that inhabited it was different.

It's a sad realization but everyone eventually goes through it and I wanted to capture that in my video cover.

Link to the original video

Reading #3 "Chapter 2 Video Art"

1. What is the difference between film and video? (Page 4, Para. 1)

2. Why was the introduction of video art such a drastic change for the art community? How was moving picture really any different from a canvas?

Project #4 Final Animations with Sound and Transitions

I had a lot of fun with this part of the project. Picking sounds was interesting and it was nice to see it all come together. I had trouble finding something in my room that would make a sound that would fit in with my visuals though. I feel like all the sounds found off the internet were very professional-like, but sounds that I recorded ended up just sounding cheap. Overall, I have enjoyed this project a lot and it has taught me a lot about the various programs we used.

Reading #2 Discussion

1. Does the ability of reproducing art reduce the value? Does having many prints/replicas of an artwork in many homes increase it's publicity, or devalue it. For example, the Statue of David is one of a kind. Has the ability to make tiny replicas that are easy to obtainable reduced the original value of the statue, or increased it's publicity by being a presence in many homes today. Does it keep the work alive?

 2. Do photographs, film, digital media, etc. still have an "aura" despite not being physically present? Will digital media ever have the publicity such as past art legends(Mona Lisa, Statue of David, etc) due to lack of this aura and no present originals?

Project #3 Animation

For this project, the obvious thing to do was to make the machines that are often seen moving in real life, move in the animation. I feel like if it was just the plane and blimps moving, it would be a bit boring so I added the tidbit with the octopus and the boat. I have some good ideas regarding the transition phase too.

Project #3 Digital Triptych Montage

For this project, I was really inspired by the technology relating to steampunk. I decided to do each panel based on a certain category of steampunk inventions. Those categories include air(airships, blimps, etc), land(bikes, motorcycles), and sea(boats, creatures, submarines). I also thought it would be neat to make each panel like a vacation destination for the family in the photos. 

1840's Gif Party

For this our first project, title 1840's Gif Party, we had to take a painting that is currently on displace at Tate Britain. I chose Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose because I loved the colour of the piece. I have also had watched a lot of Doctor Who over winter Break and they kind of reminded me of little weeping angels. I wanted to do something with them that was similar to that of a weeping angel. I figured the best was about doing this was only altering the little girls in the picture and maybe the lanterns. I tried messing with colour but ended up settling with a blurring effect instead.

1840's Gif Party Storyboards